I noticed the daily player rate dropped from the thousands to barely breaking into tgw hundreds now. Is the game worth getting back into? Will I even be able to fill up a sloop to pillage? Has there been any major changes to the game to account for the lack of player base? Any answers or info would be much appreciated

Will I even be able to fill up a sloop to pillage? Has there been any major changes to the game to account for the lack of player base?

Yes, there have been some changes, although many will say that there haven't been enough.

For example, OOO/GH has made it so that swabbies can gun (at about a new real player level), they have increased the number of swabbies on a ship and made swabbies stick around longer as more real players join the pillage. While it has always been possible to solo pillage, it is not much more practical. You can start pillaging immediately and pick up jobbers as you go.

Still, most bnavvers would rather have only ultimate jobbers and will wait a very long time to even get above average jobbers. In part this is because it is much easier to pillage when you have great jobbers and because even though it is easier, it pays more. The game has long suffered with the problem that the game isn't much fun for the bottom 50% of players (they don't get jobbed and the pay is horrible), causing them to stop playing, which makes it so that people who used to be in the 50%-75% range to now be the new bottom 50% and the game encourages them to stop playing.

The most common game design suggestions are to make the game more fun for the top 50%, because that would make the game more fun for them. *sigh*
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Algol can not assert the truth of all statements in this post and still be consistent.

I remember back in the day "elite" pillys would pay out more because you would face tougher bot crews? Tougher oppenents should pay out more in theory. But basically what I'm asking is the game still playable. I feel like back when I played there was avout 1500+ players daily and blockades would be an enormous event. How can one even blockade with 150 daily players? 2 ships at a time per side sounds pretty depressing. Is pillying even viable now with no player base. I'm really wanting to get back into the game but I feel like there have been no updates to account for the lack of player base to compensate nor has there been anything done to recruit new players

I remember back in the day "elite" pillys would pay out more because you would face tougher bot crews? Tougher oppenents should pay out more in theory.

Yes, the brigands scale up and are "tougher" in some ways, but a lot of the "toughness" is that the bots make fewer really strange moves, they are more predictable. On the other hand, elite pillages mean that the bnavver rarely run out of moves or cannons to fire, while lower skilled pillages, the bnavver not only can'tt take damage without being hurt worse, but they don't have as many options. On an elite pillage and ult SF/able carper is vastly more useful than an ult carper/able SF. It is harder to be a bnavver on an "average" pillage than an "elite" pillage, which makes the game less fun for average players, which makes them leave, which makes it harder to run "elite" pillages.

But basically what I'm asking is the game still playable. I feel like back when I played there was avout 1500+ players daily and blockades would be an enormous event. How can one even blockade with 150 daily players? 2 ships at a time per side sounds pretty depressing. Is pillying even viable now with no player base. I'm really wanting to get back into the game but I feel like there have been no updates to account for the lack of player base to compensate nor has there been anything done to recruit new players

Things are indeed different. Everything, especially games, fade with age. YPP, on the other hand, has held up better than most games. The Quake series of video games was vastly more popular 15+ years ago, but has shrunk much much more than YPP has. YPP is still fun, but you do have to adapt.
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Algol can not assert the truth of all statements in this post and still be consistent.